


Stjernestøv

by aslaug



Series: Stjernestøv [3]
Category: God of War (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aslaug/pseuds/aslaug
Summary: In which Freya learns the truth.
Relationships: Baldur & Freya (God of War), Kratos/Baldur
Series: Stjernestøv [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060637
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33





	Stjernestøv

**Author's Note:**

> This story shares the same universe as the rest of my GOW works (eg. Baldur survives).

The bird soars high, the rays of the red sun catching in its silver wings. In the opulence of mountains' sides, crowns of trees, veins of rivers, mapping the body of the earth into one seamless tapestry, the bird searches and looks for a beam of light. 

When the keen eye catches a familiar glimpse of blue gleaming — but a pallid wisp now, a memory of what used to be an all-consuming luminescent blaze — the bird does what has to be done before it even knows what it is. It dives deep and throws its body between the two men; there, in the whirlpool of feathers and dust, Freya raises her arms, strong just enough to push Kratos away. It's easier when he doesn't expect it and _oh he dares to look startled,_ as if _she_ is an intruder.

"You stay away from my son," her tongue is a dagger and her voice is venom, and with every word she means to cut deep.

"Freya—," Kratos starts, but she's not going to have any of it. 

"Why do you keep fighting? What else is there left for you to gain from us?"

She hears Baldur letting out a deep sigh behind her back. 

"Leave."

 _No,_ she's about to tell him firmly, she's not going anywhere, but when Kratos turns around and strides away without as much as a word, she realizes he wasn't speaking to her.

Freya hurries to take her son in her arms, his precious unresponsive body, so fragile, so vulnerable. She tenderly holds his face in her hands; there is a gush here and a bruise there; her mind quickly pulls at the very air around them, coating her hand with a shimmer of healing magic. Breathless and flushed, he looks back at her from under his half-closed eyelids, silent, his beautiful distant eyes locked with hers, and that is enough, she thinks, just that is enough.

"My sweet boy, why do you keep doing this to me? What if I didn't find you in time? what if it were too late?" she caresses his dear cold face with her palm, as the edges of his torn skin begin to knit back together into a smooth pale texture, but before she's done, he takes her hand in his and moves it away from his face.

"Look at you," it pains her so much to see him wounded now after everything she had to sacrifice to never have to witness it.

"Yes, Mother," he finally says, "yes, look at me. Do look at me and tell me what you see."

"I see my son alive," she replies without a blink of hesitation and _oh what pure joy_ _it brings her_ _to be able to say it out loud_.

"Right," is all he says to it, calmly. "You're right, Mother. This is exactly how it is,” his fingertips brush over the wounds on his face that he didn’t let her heal. “Don't take it away from me again."

She doesn't understand it at first, but when he tilts his head back, closes his eyes and runs his fingers along his neck, bejewelled with darkening bruises, she sees it all in his face.

" _He,_ " she spits the word out of her mouth like a clot of corrupted blood. "He hurts you—! And you… you enjoy it?"

" _He_ ," Baldur repeats the word, and the raw, sheer emotion he imbues it with immediately leaves no hesitation that they’re speaking of the same man. " _He_ reminds me, you know. Every single day, why I did the right thing by not killing you, Mother. Everything I gave up on, every dream of every bit of agony on your dying face, everything I _lived_ for and then chose to turn away from. _He_ makes everything worth it."

She doesn't want to believe what she hears. She wants to turn away in denial.

 _She will not allow it_.

"Is that so? So what now, are you saying you’re in love with that man?" Freya asks him bluntly, not even trying to hide scorn in her voice. How can she? The mere thought is bringing her on the verge of desperate rage. It can’t be true, it can’t, it cannot—

"Love," he tries the word in his mouth at first, as if rolling it on his tongue, and then chuckles softly. Bitterly. "You think I know love?"

"My boy—," she raises her hand again, craving to touch him, to comfort him, to let him know that it’s not how it is, she’s here for him, she can give him everything, _anything,_ he doesn't need to—

He jerks away from her. "Answer the question, Mother. Do you honestly think I know what the fuck it is?"

"Of course! Of course you do, my son, my dear sweet son, I’ve alw—"

"Oh wake up already!" he snaps, then takes a moment to collect himself. "You are a selfish, delusional woman.”

“But—”

“No,” he says hotly and shakes his head. “No, no, _no no no._ No. Don’t even say anything to that. There’s nothing more to add.”

A century. She had a century to run each and every word through her head that she would say to him and here she stands now, speechless. Mute. Broken. Losing him again.

“I am more than my mistakes,” she breathes out, hurt and grievance pushing at her throat.

“And that’s why I forgave you, oh Mother dear,” he exclaims and starts pacing back and forth anxiously, his face in his hands. “Well that, and I also didn’t want to die so soon after, well... We both know how it would’ve ended. Don’t we, Mother?”

He freezes in his steps and looks at her.

“Oh and let me tell you,” he approaches her again, runs his hand through her hair. She’s searching his face for a slightest modicum of affection but she knows better than that. She knows what, _who_ is on his mind right now. “Let me tell you how it was _worth_ it. To live, even to let _you_ live through that day.”

Thankful, she thinks. She should be thankful, for he showed her mercy when she didn't deserve any. And yet when her eyes stumble upon every single wound, every single scratch, every bruise that her son wears on his body like the rarest jewelry, the rage clouds her mind.

_She will not allow it._

“What is he doing to you?” she chokes on her words, her body shaking with fury.

“That’s a very good question. You see,” he replies coyly, curling a stranded lock of her hair around his finger. “He knows just where to touch… just where to _push_ to make me come undone,” she drops her head as he leans in, breathes in, takes in her scent and whispers in her ear: "to make me feel alive. Does this sound like love to you, Mother?"

She senses her very heart shriveling under the weight of his words.

“This is not normal,” she says, her voice hoarse and determined. “I will not allow it.”

Baldur laughs at her. He takes her apart, stomps every piece and laughs, joyous. 

“Wrong again, Mother. You _will_ allow it, and I _will_ keep coming back to him, and you will _not_ as much as try to stop me. I’m a merciful god, but it’s time you’ve learnt I have my limits.”

She wants to ask him why, but the question comes out as a stifled sob.

“What is it? You want to know why? I’ll tell you why,” his hand slides down her head, landing on the back of her neck. “Father taught me how to track. He taught me loyalty. He taught me how to go out there and live with who I am. He gave me a purpose. In his own wicked arrogant ways, of course, but… but you, Mother, _oohh,_ ” he chuckles, shaking his head. His blue eyes aren’t kind and almost nothing is left in them of the beautiful, shining light they once radiated. The grip of his fingers around her neck tightens, but she’s reveling in his touch, yearning for more. “You taught me to _want._ You taught me to _hunger_. So what in blazes am I supposed to do with that!? Speak!" her whole body distorts in a violent yank. This is all he knows, she thinks, this is really all he knows. But she can change it, she will keep trying.

"I am your family, Baldur! Me, not that man! I can give you love you deserve, not some cruel, twisted, masochistic _thing_ you have with him! Son, he— he'll kill you if you don't stop!"

_She will not allow it._

"You just," a laugh, "you'll just keep saying that, won't you? Listen to this, Mother. We stopped being family as soon as you spewed me out into this world, just by being who you are. And then, then—... then, when I came to you, crying, _begging_ you to undo what you'd done to me, you just…" he runs his hands down his face, as if trying to shake off an undesirable memory. "That one time, I came to my mother. I came to my mother and found nothing but a selfish witch instead, too far gone into, to… to her… power fit! So what would _you_ know about family?"

Freya smiles. What he says to her, even through the layer of impenetrable resentment he wraps his words in, still makes her heart warm up at the memory of holding him in her arms for the first time. So she smiles and walks a few paces further, sitting down on a fallen trunk. She folds her hands in her lap and lets the memory linger.

"I remember when they gave you to me for the first time. I was so scared, I screamed at them to take you away from me. The child of Odin… I hated myself for being a part of that. But then I looked down at the babe in my arms. And that's what it was, just a babe. I thought to myself that there was just as much of me in you, and it became all that mattered. Since then you were never 'a son of Odin', you were my boy. The only star in the darkest skies of my life. And oh, how you shined! _The god of light,_ they told me. But you were so much more than that. 

"Such a kind child you were growing up," she continues pensively, dreamily after a pause. "So kind and beautiful and curious. Oh how everyone loved you. Just to be around you would bring joy to gods and mortals alike. And I knew, I knew back then that if anything were to happen to you, the whole world would weep. I was so proud. I won't lie to you, my pride was coming out of vain knowledge that _I_ brought into this world something as perfect as you. I wanted to take all the credit. I wanted to make sure that the world would never get a chance to weep."

She hears him putting on his boots that she got him from the dwarf that one time after her blessing was… gone. She didn't even realise he didn't have them on. 

"You have your world, Mother, just as you wanted it. Leave mine to me," he tells her. "Keep following me around if you want, although I can't guarantee you're going to like what you see," he turns to leave, but lingers for a moment longer. "But don't you even try to interfere."

He leaves her sitting there, crushed under the weight of the truth that he'd dropped on her so ruthlessly. No, she thinks. She will not allow it. Something has to be done to prevent them from seeing each other, before it ends with her son's demise. And it will, she's sure of it. That man is dangerous, he already almost killed him once. If Baldur's eternal resentment is what it takes to keep him safe, then so be it. She has learnt to pretend she could live with that.

-

The bird dashes through the air, its wings scraping over bare skeletal branches that tear feather after feather out of them. The wind roars in its face as the bird's body lashes against it, outflying it, its mind throbbing painfully with a single thought:

_I will not allow it. I will not allow it i will not allow it iwillnotallowit_

Freya lands right in the patch of dusty grass. There is nothing graceful about it, nothing _godlike_ as she scrambles to her feet, dirty haired and breathless. The wounds on her arms sting where the sharp branches grazed her, but she doesn't notice it. She rushes forward towards a little wisp of blue light gleaming faintly, dearly in the darkness. She stumbled upon tree after tree, trips over broad roots, rises to her feet again and keeps chasing the light, as it becomes closer. Brighter. 

And there he is.

In _his_ arms again.

They don't notice her as she hides behind a tree, a watchful shadow. And oh does _she_ see everything! Not a single thing, not a single movement escapes her eyes as she watches a maelstrom of limbs tangled, intertwined in the complete chaos of the momentum. Angry grabbing hands in hair, greedy mouth on exposed neck, every breathless moan erupts around them with an all-consuming light. Not just a spark that she had to learn to be content with.

And then she's taken aback, because with one last moan he bursts open, as if letting all the light that he used to carry within himself out. Just like when he was a little crying babe in her arms. The glowing burning torrent washes over her, almost knocking her off her feet and…

...and the whole world illuminates.

She can't believe her eyes as the night itself lifts, making way for the brightness of daylight. 

And there he is, still. Her beloved son, so precious, so vulnerable, so _alive_ as his body lingers in Kratos' arms. 

Unharmed.

Serene.

Confiding.

And… safe.

Freya feels the bark under her hand burning. She takes a step back, wiping the tears from her face. She feels at peace, seeing him like this, so she finally does the right thing.

She allows it.

**Author's Note:**

> Freya buying Baldur clothes is the mood :')


End file.
